The Problem of the Day

Volume X - Sufi Mysticism

ART, YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

The Ideal of Art

When we study the art of the Middle Ages and the psychology
behind it, it seems that the principal aim of the artist
at that time was to produce an object of worship. Restricted
within the laws of conventionality, having a deeply rooted
belief in the sacredness of the artist's task, he considered
his art as the expression of his greatest devotion. And
any sensitive person will certainly feel that the art of
the Middle Ages has an atmosphere, a feeling, and a magnetism
that grows day after day. No doubt one can only appreciate
this art if one does not compare it with the art of today.
As Majnun said, 'To see Laila, you must borrow my eyes.'
So we must borrow the eyes of the people of the Middle Ages,
the feeling of the people who lived at that time, and then
look at their art; for in its primitive development there
is a mystery hidden, which could not be reproduced today.

When we think about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
we observe that the wave of inspiration coming from ancient
Greece to Italy brought new life; yet the art which was
once made for worship was then made for admiration. Art
rose to great heights, bringing the spirit of classical
antiquity into a new realm of expression. Nevertheless,
one can say that in the Middle Ages art was directed towards
God, that in the art of the Renaissance, God was included;
but that afterwards it was produced without God. And without
God, essentially there is no art. The gulf that we find
between our time and the time when art was in its greatest
glory exists because the art of today is without God. The
artist of the Renaissance had not given up God, but afterwards
God was forgotten.

Painting, sculpture – any form of art – if it is not
directed towards a higher ideal, it must go downward; it
cannot rise because there is no ladder. It is the ideal
that helps everything to go upward. Without the ideal, everything
goes downward. One can see the reason why people become
more materialistic: beauty naturally belongs to heaven.
On earth, it is only reflected; and when the connection
with the heaven is broken, when the back is turned towards
heaven, then the eyes become focused on the earth and slowly,
gradually beauty begins to disappear. Thus, in a way, the
divergence between the Renaissance and our time has been
caused by materialism, by commercialism, and by the lack
of heavenly inspiration.

No doubt the need that has been felt in the hearts of
the lovers of beauty has been working on the inner planes,
and now it is beginning to show itself. But how is it becoming
apparent? Not in the form of beauty; it is the absence of
beauty that is now beginning to be felt. The result of this
is that the artist thinks there should be a new start in
the world of art, that a new standard of beauty should be
found, a new expression; but when he tries to find it, he
mostly misses the mark. For when inspiration is lacking
and the work of art is forced by effort, what is produced
is merely mechanical. One artist thinks, 'Everything must
be in angles; that creates a new beauty.' Another says,
'No, everything must be just colors; everything must be
expressive by itself.' Another artist says, 'Everything
must be just lines without any detail; everyone should find
out for himself what it represents.' And again, another
says, 'Everything must remain in an unfinished state; that
is very artistic.' In this way, it is like many horses trying
to take different directions in order to arrive at a certain
place.

There seems to be no ideal today – but the day when the
ideal again directs the hand of the artist, art will progress
more rapidly, and the promise of the art of the future will
be fulfilled. That something, which begins with a promise
of touching the heights, of manifesting in perfection, has
another voice. It has another soul and another expression.
Today the artist is striving for it, his soul is longing
for it; but he has not yet found it. And the very reason
why he has not found it is that he is thinking too hard.
Art does not require hard thinking, nor does poetry or music.
True art always comes with ease, with relaxation; it comes
naturally. The artist should not be fighting with beauty
or struggling with inspiration.

What is most to be deplored at the present time is the
unconscious and yet predominant commercial influence that
hovers like a cloud over the art of today. There is a general
feeling that every month a new fashion must arise. There
must be a new fashion in everything; and this inclination,
saturated with commercialism, destroys the roots of natural
and beautiful art. Why strive for something new? Life is
always new and always old. It is always the same and yet
it is always new.

To think that we must forget, overlook, and destroy all
the thought of the past is a still greater error. When artists
start with this error, wanting to make something new, then
they make commonplace things, things that are far removed
from beauty. And the admirers of art, those who buy, do
not mind as long as it is new. Most of them only acquire
a work of art because it is the fashion, not because it
is beautiful; and thereby a great load of responsibility
is laid upon the artist as well as upon those who present
his work to the world. It is this pressure which spoils
the work of artistic souls, who should have time to think
about beauty and who should have leisure to feel deeply.
Instead of this, anxiety is thrown upon them, and responsibility
is forced upon them to bring out something new. On the day
the world of art forgets the word 'new', a new life will
come into it.

It seems a pity that one aspect of art is much neglected
nowadays, the making of frescos. It is to be hoped that
one day it will be developed again, and will take a more
prominent place in the world of art. But fresco painting
should be finished as any other way of painting is, as the
great masters in Italy who did not leave anything unfinished
did it. In any form of art, there should be a desire on
the part of the artist to finish his work, not to keep it
unfinished, which is against perfection. The lack of desire
to finish something reflects only laziness, lethargy, and
negligence. All of us, as human beings, have our limitations.
It is very easy to say, 'It may be unfinished, but just
look at it, it is beautiful!' But it is still not right.
Everything we do, we should wish to finish to the best of
our ability, even though it will always remain unfinished
when we look at it from the point of view of beauty itself.
We do not need to keep it unfinished on purpose; it remains
unfinished without our trying, when compared with perfection.

Contemporary decorative art seems to represent a new
step towards the unknown. No doubt the aim of decorative
art should be to produce an impression without going into
detail. But all the same, it should first be produced in
the depths of the artist's own heart, and then he should
put his thought-power into the lines that he draws. If an
artist only wants to make an effect externally, by trying
to make something attractive through making it different,
it will never look beautiful – and it will never suggest
what he wants it to suggest.

Today, when an artist tries to express an idea in decorative
art, he tries to avoid all details and depict his subject
by only a few lines. But when those lines have not sprung
from the depths of his heart, when they are not inspired,
they do not become a universal language. They do not make
another person feel at once that this is the idea which
the artist intended to produce. It must be given extra thought,
so that the lines are not only lines, but that they express
something, are suggestive of something, are living; then
they instantly produce the meaning of the artist in the
mind of the one who looks at them. If an object in decorative
art is not made with this inspiration, it is not complete.
It does not suggest anything, but is bewildering and will
confuse many people. And at this time, if even art is confusing,
where else can one go? There is nowhere else. Art should
be revealing and inspiring instead of confusing.

There was a time when decorative art was highly developed
– for instance in China, where it reached its zenith. When
the Chinese artist wished to decorate an object with a picture
of the sky, he drew it with one line; and one can feel it.
Where does that come from? Does it appear from a mental
effort? It comes from inspiration. It is one thing to think
about an idea and another thing to feel the idea, and once
the artist begins to feel the idea he is able to express
it. Even if it is not finished, it is finished in the feeling
of the artist, and that completes the lines. Those who want
to will see the truth of it, they will be able to read it;
they will know the object of the picture.

There is a new aspect of art nowadays, which is called
'clairvoyant,' 'mediumistic,' or 'spiritualistic' art. One
may speak of the bewildering effect of art, but this is
the most bewildering of all! One day a person put some colors
on paper, and showed it to me saying, 'People cannot understand
this deep idea, but you will understand it. It is very deep,
it has come from some clairvoyant source.' I looked at it;
there were many colors, that was all one could say. They
were not even blending harmoniously with one another; they
were only striking. The person who had painted it looked
at me and waited for my opinion. He asked, 'What do you
think of it?' So I replied, 'It is a picture of the end
of the world.' And he was very pleased with this answer.
Some people who claim clairvoyance try to paint what they
call 'the other side,' but to do this they would have to
bring the paint and canvas from the other side too. The
clairvoyant cannot paint the other side with the brush of
this world; if he tried it would be a mistake.

Very often, people also produce confusing patterns in
decorative art. Maybe within that pattern there is a flower,
and perhaps that flower looks like a man's face; and if
one looks at that flower from another angle, it is like
the face of a monkey or of a tiger. If this is not confusing,
what is it? And such patterns are often commercialized,
and used for wallpaper and other decorative purposes. It
is this confusion of the artist's mind which commerce has
taken over and made use of. And if confusion is used for
commercial purposes, then where are we going if not towards
confusion, greater and greater confusion helped by so-called
art?

The combination of inharmonious colors has very often
an inharmonious effect on the nerves, on the thought, and
on the mind. This gives scope to those imaginative artists
who are, however, without beauty, without art, without knowledge
of life; without any psychological conception of it whatsoever.
It makes their art popular: by claiming that it is quite
different from anything else, they can sell their art better.
Art should be simple, it should be expressive. It should
also be inspiring and revealing.